Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  The next day, June 4, 1962, they boarded the SS Maasdam, bound for New York and the New World.841 During their voyage across the Atlantic, Marina spent most of her time in their cabin with the baby while Lee would disappear to the ship’s library, where he spent many hours writing.842 What Lee was writing on the voyage appears to have been a preparation for the interviews or interrogations he at once half hoped and half feared to be subjected to on his arrival in the United States. Although he may have started work on this before he boarded the Maasdam, he at least rewrote or recopied the pages while on the ship, because they are written on the back of the ship’s stationery. There are two separate drafts of answers to an identical set of eight questions—one, for the most part, seemingly designed to alarm and infuriate his questioners, the second much more velvety in tone with an exonerating spin on them. Although the two sets of questions and answers were written separately, they are presented here with both answers to each question:

  Q: Why did you go to the USSR?

  I went as a mark of discuss [disgust] and protest against American political policies in forenign countrys, my personal sign of discontent and horror at the misguided mind of reasoning of the U.S. Government.

  I went as a citizen of the U.S. (as a tourist) residing in a foreing country which I have a perfect right to do. I went there to see the land, the people and how there system works

  Q: What about those letters?

  I made serval letters in which I expressed my above feeling to the American Embassy when in Oct 1959 I went there to legally liquate my american citizenship and was refused this legalle right.

  I made no letters deriding the U.S.!! In correspondence with the U.S. Embassy I made no anti-american statements, any critizem I might have had was of policies not our government

  Q: Did you make statements against the U.S. there?

  yes

  no

  Q: What about that type [tape] recording [a very brief recording undoubtedly made as a favor to Rimma for her employer when he first arrived in Moscow]?

  I made a recording for Radio Moscow which was broadcast the following sunday in which [I] spoke about the beauiful capital of the Socialist work [world?] and all its progress.

  I made a recording for the Moscow Tourist Radio travel log, in which I spoke about sightseeing and what I had seen in Moscow tourist circles. I expressed delight in all the interesting places, I mentioned in this respect the University, mesuem of art, Red Square, the Kremlin I rember I closed this 2 minute recording by saying I hoped our peoples would live in peace and fr.

  Q: Did you break laws by residing [or] taking work in the USSR?

  I did in that I took an othe of allignce to the USSR.

  Under U.S. law a person may lose the protection of the U.S., by voting or serving in the armed forces of a foringn state or taking an othe of alligence to that state. I did none of these

  Q: Isn’t all work in the USSR considered State work?

  Yes of course and in that respect I allso broke US law in accepting work under a forign state.

  No. Technically only plants working directly for the State, usually defense, all other plants are owned by the workers who work in them.

  Q: What about statements you made to UPI agent Miss Mosby?

  I was approched by Miss Mosby and other reporters just after I had formally requested the American Embassy to legally liquate my U.S. citizenship, for a story, they were notified by the U.S. Embassy, not by me. I answered questions and made statements to Miss Mosby in regard to my reasons for coming to the USSR, her story was warped by her later, but in barest esscens it is possible to say she had the thruth printed.

  I was approcaed just after I had formally notified the U.S. Embassy in Moscow of my future residence in he USSR by the newspaper agenties in Moscow including U.P.I. API and time inc. who were notified by the Embassy. I did not call them. I answered questions and gave statements to Miss Mosby of U.P.I. I requested her to let me OK. her story before she released it, which is the polite and ususal thing. She sent her version of what I said just after she sent it. I immially called her to complant about this, at which time she apolizied but said her editor and not her had added serval things. She said London was very excited about the story (there is how I deduced that she had allready sent it) so there wasn’t much else I could do about it. and I didn’t relize that the story was even more blown out of shape once it got to the U.S.A. I’m afriad the printed story was faricated sensenlionilizism.

  Q: Why did you remain in the USSR for so long if you only wanted a look

  I resided in the USSR from Oct 16 1959 to sprig of 1961 a period of 2½ years I did so because I was living quite comfortably. I had plenty of money, an apartment rent-free lots of girls, ect.. why should I leave all that?

  I resided in the USSR until February 1961 when I wrote the Embassy stating that I would like to go back. (My passport was at the Embassy for safekeeping) they invited me to Moscow for this purpose however it took me almost ½ year to get a permit to leave the city of Minsk for Moscow. In this connection I had to use a letter from the head consular, to the Russian authrities in Minsk (the Russians are very beaurocratic and slow about letting foreingrs travel about the country hence the visa) when I did get to Moscow the Embassy immiately gave me back my passport and advised me as to how to get a exit visa from the Russians for myself and my Russian wife, this long and ardous process took months from July 1962 untill _____ 1962, therefore you see almost 1 year was spent in trying to leave the country. thats why I was there so long not out of desire!

  Q: Are you a communits?

  Yes basically, allthough I hate the USSR and socialist system I still thank marxism can work under different circumstances.

  No of course not.

  Q: have you ever know a communist?

  not in the U.S.A.

  I have never even know a communist, outside of the ones in the USSR but you can’t help that.

  Q: What are the othestanding [outstanding] differants between the USSR and USA?

  None, except in the US the living standard is a little higher, freedoms are about the same, medical aid and the educational system in the USSR is better than in the USA.

  freedom of speech travel outspoken opposition to unpopular policies freedom to believe in god.843

  It is difficult to know what Oswald had in mind with this schizophrenic performance, but he added a significant clue at least with respect to his second set of answers when, at the end of that set, he assigned these words to his anticipated questioner, whom he assumed to be reporters for “newspapers.” They say to him, “Thank you sir, you are a real patriot!!”844

  Also on the trip back to America he wrote notes on what he called “speech before,” suggesting he was contemplating the possibility of giving a speech, somewhere, upon his return. In the speech notes, he scores segregation in America, writing,

  It, is, I think the action of the active segregationist minority and the great body of indiffent [indifferent] people in the South who do the United States more harm in the eyes of the worlds people, than the whole world communist movement…Make no mistake, segregationist tendencies can be unleared. I was born in New Orleans, and I know.

  He refers to the “major short comings and advantages” of both the American and Russian systems of government, but notes that

  only in ours is the voice of dissent allowed opportunity of expression…I have done a lot of critizing of our system I hope you will take it in the spirit it was given. in going to Russia I followed the old priciple “Thou shall seek the truth and the truth shall make you free” In returning to the U.S. I have done nothing more or less than select the lesser of two evils.845

  Other dissertations he worked on aboard the SS Maasdam, written on the front of the ship’s logoed paper, could be construed to reveal the considerable thought he gave to the damage his second defection—from the Soviet Union—did to his claim to be a Communist. He put time and effort into a new statement of his political bel
iefs:

  I have often wondered why it is that the communist, capitalist and even the fasist and anarchist elements in America, allways profess patrotistism toward the land and the people, if not the government; although their movements must surly lead to the bitter destruction of all and everything…

  I wonder what would happen if somebody was to stand up and say he was utterly opposed not only to the governments, but to the people, too the entire land and complete foundations of his socically.846

  It’s a rhetorical question, and one senses that one day he would like to be that “somebody.” But first he gropes for some third position between capitalism and communism:

  too a person knowing both systems and their factional accesories, their can be no mediation between the systems as they exist to-day and that person.

  He must be opposed to their basic foundations and representatives and yet it is imature to take the sort of attitude which says “a curse on both your houses!”

  their are two great represenative[s] of power in the world, simply expressed, the left and right, and their factions…

  any practical attempt at one alternative must have as its nuclus the triditionall ideological best of both systems, and yet be utterly opposed to both systems.847

  After some confused exegesis of the Industrial Revolution, which he seemed to believe began at “the turn of the [twentieth] century,” he decides that the two systems are incompatible because of their competition for markets. The communist system is as much at fault as the capitalistic system.

  In the communist experamint serveal factions and unavoidable developments have emerged which Marx and Engels could not possibly have foreseen…Marx envisualized that the aboliaton of class’es would lead to the gruaual [gradual] reduction of state apparous [apparatus]. however this is not the case and is better observed than contemplated. the state rather becomes more extensitve.848…In the late 1800’s Engels wrote Vanti Dühring which rightly critized Eugen Duhring’s, a german idealist who was supposably not consistent enough in his materialism for the dialectical materilist Marx. [But in] his critical anylis of Dühring Engles said with much heavy sarcism that Dühring only changed a word in his putting forward of his social revolutionary ideas that [the] changed word “was the word community from the word state” whereas Dühring wanted Social Democracy at a local or community level, Marx and Engels advocated a centrilized state which would later “wither away!” But…as history has shown time again the state remains and grows whereas true democracy can be practiced only at the local level, while [as long as] the centralized state, administrative, political or supervisual remains their can be no real democracy.849

  Oswald goes on to write that he intends to “put forward” an “allturnative” to the two systems of capitalism and communism, and “supporters” of his alternative “must prepare now in the event the situation [he writes the word “melatarist,” by itself, below “situation”] presents itself for the practical application of this allturnative.”850 But then he loses his focus, does not present an alternative (other than to resort to the meaningless platitude that “what is needed is a constructive and practical group of persons desiring peace but steadfastly opposed to the revival of forces who have led millions of people to death and destruction”), and proceeds to make his emotional rejection of both the communist USSR and the capitalist USA very clear:

  We have lived into a dark generation of tenstion and fear. But how many of you have tried to find out the truth behind the cold war clic’es [cliches]! I have lived under both systems, I have sought the answers and although it would be very easy to dupe myself into believing one system is better than the other, I know they are not.

  I despise the representatives of both systems weather they be socialist or cristan democrats, [whether] they be labor or conserative they are all products of the two systems.851

  He finishes his paper, mostly devoted to abstractions he can’t quite get a handle on, with two peculiar codas. The first is a confession that he had in fact taken Russian gold:

  Whene I first went to Russia in the winter of 1959 my funds were very limited, so after a certain time, after the Russians had assured themselfs that I was really the naive american who beliyved in communism, they arranged for me to recive a certain amount of money every month. OK it came technically through the Red-Cross as finical help to a…polical immigrate but it was arranged by the M.V.D. I told myself it was simply because I was broke and everybody knew it. I accepted the money because I was hungry and there was several inches of snow on the ground in Moscow at that time but what it really was was payment for my denuciation of the U.S. in Moscow in November 1956 [1959] and a clear promise that for as long as I lived in the USSR life would be very good I didn’t relize all this, of course for almost two years.

  As soon as I became completely disgusted with the Sovit Union and started negotitions with the American Embassy in Moscow for my return to the U.S. my “Red Cross” allotment was cut off. this was not diffical to understand since all correspondece in and out of the Embassy is censored as is common knowledge in the Embassy itself. I have never mentioned the fact of these monthly payments to anyone. I do so in order to state that I shall never sell myself intentionly or unintentionly to anyone again.

  The second coda is another peek into Lee’s fantasy life, not unlike the imagined admiration by the newspapers who would be interviewing him. It assumes that what he has written will be published and that he would be offered an appropriate fee for it:

  as for the fee of $_____ I was supposed to recive for this _____ I refuse it. I made pretense to except it only because otherwise I would have been considered a crack pot and not allowed to appear to express my views. after all who would refuse money?!?852

  The SS Maasdam put into Hoboken, New Jersey, and the Oswalds cleared immigration on June 13, 1962.853 The hordes of reporters eager to hear Lee’s story were notably absent. But INS inspector Frederick Wiedersheim was there to briefly question Lee about his Soviet interlude. Oswald told Wiedersheim that he had been employed as a mechanic in Russia, had threatened to renounce his U.S. citizenship but had never carried out the threat, had never voted in Russia, and had not held any position in the Soviet government.854 Also there to meet Oswald was a representative of the Traveler’s Aid Society, Spas T. Raikin, who had been alerted by the State Department. Lee did need Raikin’s help, as he had only sixty-three dollars to his name, nowhere to spend the night, and was without funds to go on to Texas as he wanted to do. Raikin helped Lee and Marina get through Customs and then sent them on to the New York City Department of Welfare.855

  The Welfare Department put the Oswalds up for the night in the Times Square Hotel856 and called his brother Robert’s home in Fort Worth. A case worker spoke to Robert’s wife Vada, who offered to help. She called Robert at work, and he immediately wired two hundred dollars.857 The next morning Oswald tried to refuse Robert’s money on the grounds that his brother, raising a family on a milkman’s wages, could hardly afford it. Lee wanted the Welfare Department, not Robert, to lend him the money, which he’d repay when he could. When that didn’t work, he suggested that he and his family could take the train as far as his sixty-three dollars would take them, and then apply to the welfare services wherever that was for transportation the rest of the way. He was advised that this plan was highly unrealistic and dangerous, and he finally accepted, grudgingly, Robert’s money. A case worker for the department then escorted him to a Western Union office and a bank to help him cash Robert’s money order, to the West Side Airlines Terminal to buy the tickets for the flight reserved for them, Delta Airlines flight number 821, and back to the hotel to pay their room rent and pick up their luggage. The worker then took them to Idlewild airport and remained with them until they boarded their flight for takeoff at 4:15 p.m.858

  When Lee, Marina, and June Lee descended from the plane at Dallas’s Love Field in the early evening of June 14, 1962, Robert and his family were there to greet them. Lee’s first word
s to his brother were, “No reporters?”

  “I managed to keep it quiet,” Robert said, “as you asked in your letter.” Robert thought Lee was a little disappointed, but Lee said nothing more about it.859

  Lee had stated his intention, in his affidavit of support for Marina, to reside with his mother in Vernon, Texas,860 but he was probably relieved when Robert had offered in a letter to let Lee and his family stay with them instead, and after Lee arrived, he asked how everyone was doing without even mentioning Marguerite.861

  Robert found his younger brother only a little changed after his two and a half years in the Soviet Union. He was thinner, beginning to bald, his curly hair somewhat kinkier—Lee blamed his hair loss on the Russian weather, while Robert wondered if Lee had received shock treatments in Russia that caused the loss—but he also seemed rather tense and anxious the first couple of days. He might have picked up a hint of an accent as well. Nonetheless, Robert said that “to me, [Lee] acted the same as he did in 1959 prior to going to Russia…He appeared to be the same boy I had known before.”862